Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Monday, April 25, 2011

Visited the Cantor Arts Center Museum at Stanford University for the first time the other day. It has been in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1894 so I should not procrastinate any longer.The marble-ladened lobby is beautifully adorned with Greek goddess Athena statue and a 2-sided staircase. And, if you look straight up, you will see its dome.The museum was badly damaged in the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes, but it has been restored and even expanded with an additional 36,000 square-foot wing.

Saturday, April 09, 2011

The last few weeks have been busy with constant guests coming from out of town, but this is one of the few tourist spots we actually visited. Do you recognize this tourist spot in San Francisco?It is Lombard Street or otherwise known as the "Crookedest Street in America" and probably the most traveled street in San Francisco by tourists.

Here are the dozen tourists at the bottom of the hill taking pictures.

At the top of the hill, you will see this sign right before the plunge downward.

This is a view of the city from the top of the hill.Why the crooked street?Because of the hill's 27% natural grade, back in 1922, they thought it was safer to design the road into a switchback formation and pave it with bricks.

For walkers, there are stairs with hand railing on both sides of the street. Even being a native San Franciscan, this was my first time walking up and down those stairs. I was a tourist too!